The Vulcan snapped one of its wings toward me—its right, from my left side. Probably its dominant side, judging by the force and precision behind it.
I mirrored the motion instantly, a wing-to-wing clash mid-air, my own counter sweeping from the opposite side, laced not in brute mana like its own but with razor-thin sheets of condensed cold wind. The two forces collided in midair with a shuddering crack, ripples of pressure spiralling off our impact.
Then another clash. And another.
Each meeting of wings confirmed what I already knew: I was stronger.
The Vulcan's defences weren't crumbling, no—just bending, barely able to withstand the growing momentum behind my aerial strikes. It staggered on the third impact, its wings fluttering with a millisecond delay. That was all I needed. Every minor loss it took became cumulative, and it knew it.
Sensing its disadvantage, the beast did what they always does when they starts losing: retreat, or sometimes, sacrifice, which requires pride and guts. Something this one lacks.
It soared upward again, straight into the thinning atmosphere, higher than I could safely follow without manifesting full armour. A cheap stall tactic. One, it had been used twice already. One, I wouldn't let it be used again.
I conjured the spear.
It hummed—sharp and temporary—formed from compressed wind and pressure. It wouldn't last more than a few seconds, but I didn't need it to. I hurled it forward with every ounce of precision I could channel, wrapping it in guiding winds, its trajectory honed like a hawk mid-dive.
The Vulcan sensed the spear.
And what it did next—
The beast spread its wings wide—completely wide—as if to catch the sky in its full embrace… and then it folded them inward, cocooning itself. At the last possible second, it snapped one wing outward with a violent burst of internal pressure, launching its entire body out of the spear's path in a wild, backwards propulsion.
I blinked.
'Why the hell didn't it just change its flight path?'
The manoeuvre was flashy. Confusing. Even impressive. But unnecessary. Completely overengineered for what could've been a simple shift in direction.
Every dodge it made was like that. One moment creative, the next absurd. Sometimes it danced through the sky like a genius tactician. Other times, it moved like a drunk actor trying to impress an invisible audience.
And the whole damn fight?
A show of waste.
I shouldn't be up here. Not wasting time, mana, life, while Lucius was down there with that enraged Chimaera. She wasn't toying with him anymore. Not after that lightning. Not after that look in her eyes. And if Lucius fell, if he even staggered once, it would be over.
My pulse was a war drum in my ears.
I could feel the pressure behind my eyes. In my throat. The staggering weight of urgency dragging behind every movement. I was bleeding time, losing focus, my mana circulation growing sloppy, inefficient. The old human method of mana rotation—outdated and pathetic—wasn't replenishing anything. Not now. Not fast enough.
The Vulcan screeched again.
That same high-pitched scream that somehow always managed to hit a part of my spine that didn't like being touched. It reverberated through me, crawling under my skin, making the very skin on my arms rise with irritation I could no longer suppress.
"That's it."
This bastard was done playing bird.
The winds around me responded—not with elegance, not with grace—but with rage. The sky itself coiled around me, wild and jagged. No noble restraint. No tactical finesse.
Just wrath.
I took the charge, the lead, chasing the Vulcan like a predator locked in. No mercy. No pause. I was the other storm at its back now.
The beast sensed it—me, truly and fully coming for it—and in one desperate surge, it funnelled all of its remaining mana into a single gamble: speed.
It launched forward like a dart, abandoning all pretence of combat. No more barrages. No feints. It even conjured a few half-formed mana arcs to slow my pursuit, but they were pathetic, nothing more than flickering sticks tossed in my direction. I weaved through them like wind through leaves.
It knew.
It knew I wouldn't stop unless one of us fell... Yet it did not fly away, into the only direction I won't have to chase it... It did not abandon the fight, the unwinnable battle, for some reason.
So it dove—hard—into the churning, thunder-choked clouds below, where visibility fractured and mana sensitivity twisted like static in my head.
I followed.
The winds roared, rain stabbing at my face, the thunderclouds swallowing my form. My wings and mana currents adjusted, guided by instinct alone. I knew I was draining far too much mana for this chase. I could feel it thinning, threading through my body like silk unravelling.
Still, I pressed on.
This damn bird wouldn't let me rejoin Lucius, not until it either died or couldn't fly anymore.
As I descended into the cloud layer, the Vulcan's form blurred into the storm. Its dark body vanished among the greys and silvers, the wind and haze warping my sight. A clever tactic—use the clouds' camouflage and the lightning's distortion to become nearly invisible.
But I had more to rely on than eyes.
I extended my senses further than comfort, beyond safe thresholds. My head pounded. My mana pulsed erratically, too strained to remain stable. But I didn't care.
This beast had crossed a line.
The cold rain kissed my skin again. The same deafening thunderclaps boomed overhead. My muscles screamed under the pressure. My wings strained against the torrent.
Then—there.
A flicker of movement. A ripple through the air. A presence I could almost taste.
I launched myself back up, ascending into the clouds once more with a gut-born certainty. And I was right. The Vulcan hovered there in loose, slow circles, trying to mask itself within the storm, ducking just enough to stay elusive, like a coward clinging to its last trick.
Not anymore.
I called my staff.
It obeyed without hesitation, manifesting into my hand like it had been waiting for this exact moment. My grip wrapped tight around the polished core as my wings beat the air one last time.
My ascent shattered the sound barrier.
A ripple tore across the sky behind me, numbing my ears as everything around me fell silent. No wind. No thunder. Just the rush of speed. My focus narrowed to one thing—the target, the Vulcan, now finally trapped in my sights, the same way I was all this time.
I altered course slightly, flying diagonally angled into the core of the cloud bank where the beast continued its circling dance, to sneak past, to deal a quick finishing blow.
The Vulcan saw me the same moment I felt the presence... It must have felt my presence as well, the moment my eyes and senses caught on to it.
One of its eyes had never left me. Even as it ran, it watched.
Good.
Let it see what comes for those who steal time from me.
I charged forward. Three crescent-shaped wind arcs rotated at my side, slicing through the storm like spinning razors. At the staff's tip, a compressed orb of condensed wind pressure swelled—violent, unstable, destructive. I wasn't holding back.
My speed exceeded even my own expectations. My body cut through the air like a blade. The Vulcan barely had time to react. It twitched—half a wing-beat, half a panicked motion—but it was already too late.
I slammed into it at full speed.
The impact blurred everything—the clouds, the horizon, even time itself.